Hurricane Debby crosses Florida, Georgia, South Carolina & North Carolina, historic flooding likely

Photo byNational Weather Service

Northern Florida, Southern Georgia, South Carolina into portions of Southeast North Carolina are about to see the heaviest rainfall in many years and quite possible historic rainfall amounts from Hurricane Debby. The hurricane strengthened overnight and is making landfall today along the coast of the Florida Big Bend area near Cedar Key. From here, Debby will be on a slow crawl northeastward and it may take all week for Debby to play out. This sets up for devastaing and potentially catastrophic rainfall in the areas noted above.

Photo byweather prediction center

These are rain forecast amounts through 8PM Wednesday with the purple area from North Florida to Southeast North Carolina in an area of 8 to 12 inches of rain. You can expect local amounts to be 50 to 100 percent higher as is often the case with tropical storms. Total rainfall amounts of 20 inches or more are possible. These are historic record breaking amounts.

Photo byweather prediction center

Debby has a long way to go yet as far as impacts to the US East Coast and the ultimate track of Debby remains highly uncertain. Debby will cross North Florida and exit off the coast of Southeast Georgia sometime Tuesday evening. This slow movement allows the storm to dump torrential rains in the Southeast US, first in South Georgia and North Florida and then into South Carolina and possibly North Carolina.

Photo byTropical Tidbits

There are several possible outcomes with regard to track. One includes what the European and Icon models have been suggesting which is Debby moves off the Georgia coast, strengthens again possibly to a hurricane and then makes landfall into South Carolina or North Carolina. This would not happen until some time late week and then track north and northeast up the East Coast bringing rain and wind to parts of the Mid Atlantic and southern areas of the Northeast US.

Photo byNational Hurricane Center

Another possibility is that Debby stalls out off the coast of Georgia and backtracks westward into Southern Georgia and Northern Florida and points west. This creates a scenario where the storm weakens however the heavy torrential rains continue across South Carolina, Georgia and North Florida. The first scenario of a storm eventually tracking northward is probably the more likely scenario. Alot depends here on the steering currents in the upper atmosphere that are very weak. This traps Debby in the Southeastern US until something comes along in the northern part of the jet stream to carry it northward and eventually turn northeastward. We are leaning in this direction forecast wise and that mean areas from Eastern North Carolina and Virginia northward to Maryland, Delware, New Jersey, Southeastern New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts should pay attention to weather developments over the next several days. If the northward track materializes, it would mean rain and some wind perhaps beginning late Friday and lasting through the upcoming weekend.